{"id":48949,"date":"2025-06-18T22:55:31","date_gmt":"2025-06-18T14:55:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/dod-cio-official-satcom-needs-its-3gpp-moment\/"},"modified":"2025-06-18T22:55:31","modified_gmt":"2025-06-18T14:55:31","slug":"dod-cio-official-satcom-needs-its-3gpp-moment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/dod-cio-official-satcom-needs-its-3gpp-moment\/","title":{"rendered":"DoD CIO Official: Satcom Needs its \u20183GPP Moment\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n<p><em>ARLINGTON, Va.<\/em> \u2014 Satcom leaders at the <strong>Department of Defense Chief Information Officer<\/strong> (DoD CIO) are pushing to modernize user terminals and teleports, leaning into software-defined architectures to make use of military, commercial and allied satcom networks.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn satcom, I think we need to have that 3GPP moment,\u201d said Mike Dean, director of Command, Control and Communications (C3) Infrastructure at DoD CIO, referring to the comprehensive global standards that made it possible for mobile devices to roam seamlessly across cellular networks.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think we need to do the same thing with satcom terminals,\u201d Dean said Tuesday at MILSATCOM USA. \u201cThey\u2019ve got to be light, they\u2019ve got to be inexpensive, they\u2019ve got to be software-defined, so we can put the different waveforms and service-provided networks in them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Dean\u2019s office is responsible for the digital transformation of legacy C3 capabilities, which includes modernizing ground infrastructure and supporting satcom user terminal upgrades across the military branches.<\/p>\n<p>While the space segment has undergone significant modernization, there has been a tendency to underestimate the importance of the ground segment, exemplified by the lag in user equipment for the narrowband Mobile User Objective System (MUOS). Dean described user terminals as \u201cthe tail that wags the dog,\u201d noting it can currently take 7 to 15 years to integrate new terminals into ships, submarines or aircraft \u201cuntil we get to software defined.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Paul Van Slett, the SATCOM division chief at DoD CIO, reiterated the point, saying a satellite designed for satcom \u201cthat is not interoperable with the ground segment or user terminal \u201cis effectively an orbiting paperweight.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Speaking at MILSATCOM USA, Van Slett elaborated the need for interoperability, calling for a shift away from hardware toward software, or virtualization, which is common in the mobile industry and beginning to be used in commercial satcom. Virtualization employs software-based representations of physical computing resources, like routers, switches, modems, networks, servers and even waveforms.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPart of the modernization effort will be to reduce the amount of bespoke \u2018pizza boxes\u2019 that exist in DoD [satcom facilities] and field standardized servers that can be upgraded as necessary,\u201d said Van Slett, referring to vendor-specific hardware. \u201cSoftware upgrades are a lot faster than doing all the wiring and cabling and interoperability testing of new hardware when that new hardware wasn\u2019t necessary to begin with, when that capability can be virtualized.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The DoD CIO has joined several industry consortia working to standardize and virtualize core elements of the ground segment. These include the Digital Intermediate Frequency Interoperability (DIFI) Consortium and the Waveform Architecture for Virtualized Ecosystems (WAVE) Consortium. WAVE is currently working to develop a standard for waveform virtualization so satellite modems can be software-based, replacing bespoke hardware and improving resiliency by diversifying data pathways.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis allows the ability for waveforms, if necessary, to be routed to alternate facilities to keep missions up, to allow that capability to be extended across long distances, or to provide resiliency,\u201d Van Slett explained.<\/p>\n<p>Virtualization would also allow the military to upgrade waveforms as new ones are developed without buying new equipment, he continued. \u201cNow that can be done through a simple software upgrade on standardized servers, just like routing and switching virtualization.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The potential advantages of satcom virtualization have reached policymaking circles. Earlier this week, the DoD CIO issued a response to Congress after being asked what is being done to virtualize waveforms, Van Slett told <em>Via Satellite<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>The DoD CIO will continue outlining parameters for the future ground segment. Before the end of the year, they are expected to release the Modernized Teleport System (MTS) capability development document. The document will define needed improvements in developing a resilient, multi-band, multi-orbit, multi-path satcom enterprise.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ARLINGTON, Va. \u2014 Satcom leaders at the Department of Defense Chief Information Officer (DoD CIO) are pushing to modernize user terminals and teleports, leaning into software-defined architectures to make use of military, commercial and allied satcom networks. \u201cIn satcom, I think we need to have that 3GPP moment,\u201d said Mike Dean, director of Command, Control [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":48950,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48949"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48949\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}